


Everyone Says I Love You, Before Christmas 1970

by MissAtomicBomb77



Series: For the Greater Good, Let's Do the News [11]
Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: F/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-30
Updated: 2013-11-30
Packaged: 2018-01-07 09:45:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1118422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissAtomicBomb77/pseuds/MissAtomicBomb77
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seeing this, for whatever reason just makes him elated and he pecks a kiss on her forehead. “Love you.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everyone Says I Love You, Before Christmas 1970

Before Christmas 1970  
Late Afternoon  
Charlie and Lee’s Apartment  
Phnom Penh, Cambodia

“Hey,” he says as walks into their apartment.

“Oh, hey,” Lee responds, not really looking up as she stares over her typewriter. She’s in work mode, she has been all day. There are a few tell tale signs of this, the main one being that her hair was pulled up into a ponytail on her head. There was a pencil tucked behind her ear and it was more for effect than use. Sleeves rolled up on… yep, one of his white dress shirts and her beige linen pants. She’s working on the orphanage story; he knew that only because that was the bulk of their conversation over dinner last night.

Meals were clandestine affairs between the two of them. He dislikes most of the local fare and keeps to fruit he recognizes, eggs and rice with pork. She loves the local food and street market food as well and she will eat anything. However for a woman with such a broad pallet, she eats very little and this makes Charlie crazy.

Breakfast for her is half a piece of fruit and some scrap of protein from the night before, a piece of meat, maybe nuts if they are lucky to have them. Charlie usually has an egg for breakfast, the additional protein as well as the half piece of fruit she doesn’t eat. Lunch, when she remembers to eat it, consists of something from the market or if she doesn’t go out, a boiled egg and some vegetable, whatever they happen to have around. Dinners have gotten a little better for Charlie, he used to get something from the market, a broth or rice dish, but she’s pretty savvy with the hotplate and she can make that in the apartment as long as she has the ingredients to do so.

The accidental destruction of an orphanage outside of town three days ago had really bothered her. She even slacked off on the moderate eating that she did. So when she was finally hungry last night, he simply took her to the Hotel Le Royal and let her eat her heart’s content. It made him at ease to watch her eat something. He was also happy to see the remnants of a lunch around her typewriter, egg shell, empty glass and what appeared to boiled cabbage. Wow, he thinks, a large lunch for her.

Seeing this, for whatever reason just makes him elated and he pecks a kiss on her forehead. “Love you.” He says simply before disappearing into the bedroom to find one of his few books to keep him busy while she worked.

“Love you too.” She says absently, returning to her thoughts and her typing.

There are no words that can express the sadness of seeing the broken bodies of children that have lost the people that loved them. The only solace is that perhaps in death they have returned to the arms that loved them. Because there are no greater words than I love you and these children deserved to hear it from the most important people in their lives.

That’s when she stops. Her head shoots up then and she sees him, white dress shirt, khaki pants holding his battered copy of The Great Gatsby and toeing out of his sandals and retreating to the hammock on the balcony. She’s just watching him blankly and slowly she rises from her place at the typewriter and pulls the pencil from behind her ear and sets it carefully on the table. He sinks into the hammock now, crosses his legs and opens to a familiar place in the book, oblivious to Lee, who was creeping towards him, wide eyed and mouth open like a fish.

“Charlie?” She asks now as she creeps up to him. “What just happened?”

His eyebrows crease and he drops the open book on his chest to look at her. “I came home, you were working, and I decided to read something.”

Her face turns to a smile. “You told me you loved me.”

“Did I?” he says simply, returning to his book.

“Don’t play coy with me Charlie Skinner. Yes you did.”

He closes his eyes. He was really hoping she hadn’t noticed, that she was engrossed enough in her work to let the words slip on by and he could come to saying it naturally to her and it not be an international incident, like it was right now. That she wouldn’t notice and he could say that he’d been saying the words the whole time. He opens his eyes now. “Well, it’s more than a tender curiosity,” She frowns at him now and he taps the book. “It’s a mangling of a line from The Great Gatsby.”

“I know damn well what you’re reading.” She snaps the book up and wings it behind her shoulder and it lands with a thud somewhere in the bedroom. “You said it.”

“Do we have to talk about it right this second?”

She has her hands on her hips now, but she’s still smiling. “Do you think I can get you to say it again?”

“Not when you berate it out of me, no.” Charlie replies, his arms now behind his head. He was probably going to nap anyway. He’s watching her now, eyebrow cocked at her, waiting for her response.

Lee swallows the instinct to strangle him in his place. She points at her eyes with two fingers and then at him. She knows she’s going to get nowhere fast so she decides to return to her work. As she turns her back to him she can’t help but smile wide. He said it, she thinks, he finally said it. Charlie Skinner loves her and he actually said it.

She doesn’t see him, but Charlie; he’s smiling as well from his place in the hammock as the afternoon sun starts to wane in the sky.


End file.
